Inside Out Read online

  “I don’t like people getting the wrong impression of me,” he drawled. “I’m sorry. It was an honest mistake. I’m sure I would have said the same to anyone standin’ there.”

  “I’m not,” she retorted. He rolled his eyes and stuck his hands in his jeans pockets. “Listen,” Tracey said, deciding she truly didn’t have the energy to continue this. “I really haven’t the time or the energy to spend trying to assuage your great white guilt about something I’ve already forgotten. Get over it. In fact, get over yourself.” She gave herself an internal pat on the back and walked away.

  Chapter 3

  True to her word to Garrett Atkins, Tracey let go of her anger about the incident with him. However, she found it increasingly difficult to forget about him. After that first encounter, the guy was ubiquitous! Everywhere she went, every time she looked up, there the hell he was. Late one night, she found herself at the ANM, the university’s late-night general store. A person could get anything there, from CDs to jeans to kegs to a fast cheeseburger from the tiny café in the back. In truth, every student that ever pulled an all-nighter had found his or her way to that place.

  Tracey didn’t need to stay up and study, but one of her frequent bouts of insomnia had led her there. It was a useful condition when, as an undergrad, she carried an eighteen-hour load, worked part-time, and finals rolled around. But not being able to sleep was frustrating when the semester had just started and her workload hadn’t ramped up yet. Her body felt tired, but she was awake for no good reason, as usual, in the middle of the night. She had come down to the ANM for nothing really, just an insomniac browsing.

  She decided to rent movies. When she went to check out, the girl behind the counter smiled and took Tracey’s movies. Petite with narrow shoulders, perky breasts, frosted pink lips, arched, barely existent eyebrows, and upswept blonde hair, she looked young, but she probably wasn’t more than two or three years younger than Tracey.

  “May I see your student ID?” she asked.

  Unfortunately, Tracey hadn’t planned on renting movies and had left her purse in the car. She only had cash in her pocket.

  “Oh, I’m sorry. I left my ID in my car. Can I leave this with you? I’ll be right back.”

  She nodded and took the movies in her thin and French-manicured hands.

  When Tracey heard the voice behind her, she nearly jumped out of her skin.

  Garrett Atkins said to the salesclerk, “Don’t worry about that, Jenna, I know her. Her name’s Tracey McAlpine.”

  The girl’s smile broadened to the point of splitting and she pushed out her chest even more. Without Tracey’s permission, she started to enter her name into the computer while talking to Tracey’s newfound nemesis. “So Rett, whatcha been up to? I haven’t seen you around lately.”

  Rett, a fitting nickname.

  “Not much, Jenna. School, you know. But I hear you’re working on homecoming queen for this year already.” He leaned lazily on the counter beside Tracey, his warm body turned towards hers. His face, however, was on the girl.

  “Well, I am in the running,” she crooned in mock embarrassment.

  “Well I know who to vote for.” He winked, then smiled at her. He offered up a sexy, hot, and still somehow sweet expression. The girl forgot all about taking Tracey’s money. She just giggled and handed her the movies. Tracey could have just walked out and she never would have said a word. Tracey could have vomited, but usually tried not to do that in public. She took the money out of her pocket, nine dollars even, and left it on the counter. She started to walk off. The clerk still didn’t turn to her. Lucky for Tracey, she knew when to return the movies. But as soon as she stepped away from the counter, Rett’s attention lighted on her. He said some sort of goodbye to Jenna and followed Tracey out of the store.

  “Don’t I get a thank you?” He leaned his hip against her car. She paused before slipping into the seat.

  “First, get off my car. Second, no, you don’t. I could have come out here and gotten my ID. It wasn’t necessary for you to throw your, how shall I put it, masculine clout around on my behalf.”

  He smiled at that, almost laughed. And it was almost the same smile he’d given the obvious law school groupie. But somehow this smile wasn’t nearly as cocky as the other. It was like he really meant it… or maybe Tracey was as simple-minded as the blonde.

  “You know, I’m still waiting for the water to pass under that bridge,” he said, chuckling.

  Tracey rolled her eyes. “Well, keep waiting,” she retorted and dropped into her seat. She was definitely getting better at saying her peace. She closed the door without rolling the window down and turned the key. Garrett and she engaged in a sophomoric stare-down for a few seconds before he got off the car and Tracey pulled out of the parking space. She drove all the way home without the radio. She killed her engine, got out with her movies, locked her doors, walked to her porch, opened her front door, walked in, then kicked the door closed behind her, hard. That was probably going to leave a mark. Then she locked it, grumbling.

  The very next morning, Tracey walked into the law school lounge to get a cup of coffee and there he was with four of his friends. Apparently one of them had put money in the snack machine but got nothing out. The bag of chips was caught in the metal spiral that rarely wanted to give up its goodies. Intelligent men that they were, rather than walk around to the office to get the money back, they’d decided to try to tip the machine to make the booty fall to the bottom. Tracey ignored them and got her coffee. She hid laughter behind her cup as she continued to be entertained by the display of confounded testosterone. They shook the machine, still not freeing the bag of sour cream and onion potato chips.

  Then all at once they got a brilliant idea. A marvelously brilliant idea, or so they thought. Rett positioned himself beneath the machine as the others leaned it against his back. Tracey believed, though she couldn’t be certain, that the intent was to hold it up, turn it upside down and shake it until the snack treasure came free. By that time other students had trailed in—all of them women—and the laughter was out of control. Though the other spectators let out unchecked gales of laughter, Tracey tried to control herself. She really did. But she finally couldn’t hold it in anymore and, like rapids over a waterfall, the giggles gushed out.

  Garrett looked up at her and something happened. She felt something. A spark, a current, a fleeting something. He must have felt something too because he let go of the machine. He looked like a guy who’d been caught drinking milk out of the carton by his mother. Then the look turned downright seductive. Tracey was stunned. However, letting go of his part of the mechanical burden wasn’t exactly a good idea. A louder-than-loud smash signified the hulking machine’s crash to the floor. For a moment, all five of them just stood there, shocked, Tracey imagined. Intriguing hazel eyes found her once more. They spoke to her almost as if she were an accomplice.

  “Bright,” she intoned dryly. “Very bright.” And he laughed. He actually laughed. Then he took off running with the other guys, as if they were children. As if none of them were law students in that very building. As if no one knew who they were. As if school didn’t take care of good ol’ boys like them anyway.

  After that, she saw him everywhere. She saw him with girls hanging on his every word, saw him at the law library, saw him playing football out on the lawn in those worn navy blue shorts. She saw him getting his way all the time, which disturbed her to no end. Because he represented something to her. Maybe it was unfair, but he did. Rett Atkins embodied all that was wrong with the world to her somehow.

  Not only that, it was as if he were haunting her. She knew he was not, but still, at those times, she would catch herself staring at him, and he almost always caught her, too. He would look back at her with a crooked smile and squeezed brow that formed his face into a question mark. Or he would just give her his full attention and grin at her. Somehow, every single time she saw that smile, she felt electricity run across her skin. Something was hap
pening. Tracey just didn’t know what. She saw him in slow motion, with soft music playing in the background, and that just wasn’t right.

  Chapter 4

  During that period in Tracey’s life, she spent most of her time in the small two-bedroom house that had once belonged to her father’s mother. She loved her house. It had gone unused for years until Tracey moved out of the dormitory in the second semester of her sophomore year. Dorm life had nearly done her in. Though she wished different, Tracey just wasn’t that social. She had always loved her grandma’s house, and it was only a couple of miles from campus. There were old, old trees wrapped up in each other in the front yard, and in the dark they almost hid the whole house from the street. Tracey had spent hours in those trees when she was little, cradled in their smooth, concealing branches. As an adult, this house had become her oasis. It became their oasis.

  The scent of freshly brewed coffee constantly permeated her home. Tracey was positively addicted to it. Before long, Garrett was, too. The first time he came to her was about two weeks after the incident at the law school. It was odd, because he had been on her mind. She couldn’t figure out why someone of his lily white shade and popularity-poll-winning smile cared enough to wait half an hour just to apologize to her. Why someone who didn’t seem to have one irregularity about him other than stunning eyes kept looking at her like…like… She didn’t know how he was looking at her. This night, as had become alarmingly frequent of late, she was struggling to reconcile these two seemingly different parts of his personality when he showed up at her door.

  The night before, Thursday night at the law library, Tracey had been studying with her Employment Rights study group, which happened to be three other black students. She liked her group a lot and they seemed to like her, although she was not sure if they ever really got to know her. Incredibly self-conscious back then, she worried that she would say the wrong thing or make a wrong reference or not get a reference they made. So she spent most of her time staying quiet.

  She was having trouble focusing that night until she heard the wayward comment: “I don’t know why y’all so worried about this course. Dr. Burke has a jones for Tracey anyway. It’s gon’ be straight up A’s across the board for y’all this whole semester.”

  “Tory,” Tracey yelped at the slim, light-skinned fellow. She didn’t even know he knew she knew Dr. Burke. She narrowed her eyes at Shanda, whom Tracey had met when they were undergrads. Shanda immediately averted her gaze.

  “Ahhh, I hit on something then,” Tory announced. “On the real, Tracey, what’s nekkid between you and old dude.”

  “Nothing is ‘nekkid,’” Tracey replied, rolling her eyes. “For one thing he’s an associate of my dad’s, and, for another, he’s my faculty advisor.”

  And just at that moment, she looked up. And there was Rett Atkins standing over at the circulation desk writing something on a legal pad. Tracey would never forget what he was wearing: the smile that killed her. She could see his perfect white teeth, his soft lips. Damn, he had lips! Pretty, full, dark pink lips.

  When he finally turned his attention away from the pad she watched him direct the smile at the girl behind the counter. She fairly oozed I-want-to-do-you-real-bad at him, letting her hand trail over the soft curl of her dyed red hair. Ridiculous. This guy was ridiculous.

  He turned then, throwing his book bag over his shoulder and glancing Tracey’s way. She looked off, attempting to immerse herself in the conversation with her peers.

  Unfortunately, Shanda drew all of their group’s attention to the one place Tracey didn’t want it. “Him.” She motioned to Garrett who was, by then, standing at one of the catalog computer terminals. “His name’s Rett Atkins. He’s number three right now, isn’t he, Tory?”

  “Thank you for bringing it up, Shan.” Tory ranked nearer to seventy-three.

  “I’ll personally be lucky to be number three hundred having y’all for a study group,” Sabrina complained as she started to pack up her books. She would be studying corporate law that next fall.

  “Aww, girl, you know you love it,” Tory declared, throwing an arm around her shoulder.

  “Whatever,” she answered, rolling her eyes. “I’m out, y’all. I gotta go try and enjoy what’s left of this Thursday night.”

  “Me, too,” Shanda yawned, grabbing her books, “You coming, Tory? You know you ain’t got no car.”

  “You always talking about somebody ain’t got no car. But let me ask you this…who wrecked my car?” Tory grumbled, snatching up his books. “You coming, too, Tracey?”

  “No, I think I’ll stay for a minute.” She just couldn’t seem to get up.

  “Well, see you later,” they called and Tracey watched them walk out of the library.

  “Okay, y’all!”

  Involuntarily, Tracey surveyed the room, looking for what she knew she shouldn’t be looking for. She didn’t see Garrett. She stood and stretched and rubbed her eyes. Even after being there for five and a half hours, for some reason she still felt wired. After going to the snack bar to get a drink, she walked out into the cool, breezy night.

  A silver moon shone brightly, like all the light she felt inside her. Clouds gray and puffed clung to their cottony brothers and sisters, separated only by that lovely moonlight. Tracey took a breath. She took another, feeling the cool go down her throat into the depths of her stomach. It was about time for the weather to cool off. But she wasn’t cool. Inside, she was burning up. Her skin was creeping and tingling all over her body. She closed her eyes and breathed some more. She couldn’t stand still. She saw his face in her mind. This was useless.

  When she got back to her spot in the library, she decided to go on home. Packing up her books, Tracey realized that two were missing. She looked in her book bag, on the table, under the table, but couldn’t find them. She pressed a hand to her eyes and took a deep breath. She was not going to panic, nor was she going to exhaust herself even more. It had been a long night. Either Shanda or Sabrina or Tory had picked up her books by mistake and all she needed to do was call them. She took more deep breaths and took out her cell phone. No one answered.

  After leaving messages, Tracey stopped by the front desk to provide her name and number in case the books turned up, then went home.

  She called each of them again when she got home. No one had her books or remembered seeing her with them. But she knew she had taken them to the library with her and she knew they had been on the table. She tried to relax.

  Chapter 5

  “Another shot of Jäger, my friend?” Clay asked as the bartender set another glass of the stuff in front of Rett.

  “You just keep ’em comin’, boy. I’m gon’ show you how to take ’em down like a champ,” Rett answered with a grin. He drummed the bar top momentously, then swept up the drink and let it slip quickly down his throat. He held back his grimace like a man.

  “Where we goin’ next?” Clay asked, knocking back his own.

  “Aww, man.” Rett slapped him on the back and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. He hated the taste of Jäger. “I’m going to Kim’s. I’ll see you back at the apartment later.”

  “Aw-right,” Clay acknowledged, then waggled his eyebrows at a pretty redhead at the end of the bar… at least until a very pretty blonde with pretty hazel eyes eclipsed his view and winked at him.

  When his expression changed, Rett tracked his gaze to the blonde at whom he scowled. “Don’t make me kick your ass, Clay.”

  Clay licked his lips and turned to order another drink.

  Rett left after greeting the blonde with a half-hug and a kiss just to annoy her. In his car, he looked over at the books on his passenger seat and took a deep, fortifying breath. Then, he punched directions into the nav system.

  * * *

  Late Friday night, Tracey was up and home, as she usually was, drinking spiked coffee and listening to jazz. Maybe it sounded pretentious, but it’s what she liked to do. Listening to jazz had been Tracey’s favorite pastime
ever since her father brought home a reel-to-reel when she was about seven. The coffee came later when he bought her a coffee maker and, when her mother wasn’t looking, gave her a bottle of coffee liqueur he’d brought from the islands.

  Just when Charlie Parker was about to get into his “Mood,” Tracey heard a knock at her door and got up to answer it. She moved slowly, wondering who would come this late. She peeked through the peephole in the door and her immediate reaction was, There’s a white boy at my door. She rubbed her eyes, but there he stood: Garrett Atkins. She opened the door.

  “Hey,” he piped, wearing a little boy grin.

  “Oh, no, not you!” It was out before she could stop it.

  “What do you mean, not me?” He chuckled. His voice was slower and deeper than usual. More accented than usual. It put a tickle on the back of her neck. She tried to think about all those movies with the dirty old white man trying to get at some fresh-out-of-church naïve, nubile, young black girl walking down the side of a rural road. It had been done in so many ways in so many movies. Sometimes they got them, sometimes they didn’t. But the scenes she could remember weren’t working. He wasn’t leering at her. He was, however, giving her a tickle.

  “What are you doing here?” she asked, agitated.

  “Well, it’s actually a two-part mission,” he started, knocking another smile her way. Another tickle.

  She crossed her arms in front of her chest, refusing to fall for it. Those smiles were his weapon.

  “Listen, I’m sorry I’m here so late,” he said in a rush. “God, I’m sorry. But I couldn’t stop thinking you were mad about what happened that first day at the law school. I mean, I see you around every day and every day I think you think I’m a… I’m a—”